Never Too Late To Begin Again
The Adrenaline Rush
I can vividly remember like it was yesterday how we threw our caps in midair, with shouts of triumph when the Vice-Chancellor declared that we were now graduates of the University of Buea, Cameroon. It had been a sweet and sour undergraduate experience which had finally come to an end as we all heaved sighs of relief and said a final goodbye to “The place to be” as it was popularly called. Graduating at the top 5% of my class, I was excited, full of energy and believed that I was now highly equipped to go into the world and make a difference no matter how small. Many years have now past by and I can confidently say that I am still walking that line. With a penchant for research, I joined the Laboratory of Research on Advanced Materials and Nonlinear Sciences at the University of Buea, Cameroon headed by Dr. Dikande Alain Moise, a seasoned researcher, Alexander Von Humboldt Fellow and ICTP Senior Associate.
I was under his tutelage as a Postgraduate research student studying for an MSc. in Physics from the Academic years 2008–2009 and 2009–2010. We worked in the following areas; optics and non-linear communication, theoretical condensed matter physics, non-linear dynamics and complex systems and material sciences. The topic of my Thesis was “Mesoscopic electrical circuits with Q-charge states: the quantum Soliton-effect electronics” which has its application in the long distance transmission of power over electric cable lines. My work with the laboratory amongst other well-grounded researchers gave me a deeper understanding on how to carry out independent and collaborative research using the right methodologies and also how to communicate effectively. It also opened up my eyes to the world of publications and conferences. All seemed very rosy until early 2010 when my life came grinding to a halt due to an unexpected encounter with computer programming.
Eureka! Eureka!
After having spent over a year and two months at the Laboratory with barely seven months left to bag my Master’s degree in Physics, I withdrew from the Laboratory, abandoned my work, bought an HP laptop and started studying programming. What had happened was that in the course of the Master’s program, we did a course in Computational physics where I had had a stint with programming using FORTRAN and this changed everything about me. I soon began to realize how passionate I was for that course over others. I had done courses like Introduction to Computer Science I and II, Computer Architecture, Artificial Intelligence, Logic programming and Symbolic Computing, Databases and Operating Systems during my undergraduate days which led up to my minor in Computer Science. However, my encounter with computer programming at the postgraduate level was more of a “Eureka” moment for me and this completely disrupted my entire career path. During this period away from the Laboratory, I started playing around with MySQL and Access for fun and began developing websites using HTML and CSS. This I did for over three months until I stumbled upon some information for a postgraduate scholarship in Computer Science at the African University of Science and Technology, Abuja, Nigeria which I applied for. I was selected from a pool of applicants from different Nationalities and awarded a $22,500US dollar scholarship by the integrated long distance Telecommunications Company, Phase 3 Telecom Ltd. to study at the aforementioned University. The Scholarship package also included a 6-month paid internship at the company Headquarters.
While doing my MSc in Computer Science, I took, excelled at and fell in love with courses like Software Engineering, Data Structures and Algorithms, Computer Architecture and Design, Modeling Paradigms and Smartphone Applications development just to name a few. Because of my former background as a Physicist, my Supervisor Prof. Mohamed Hamada, lecturer and Head of the Software Engineering Laboratory at the University of Aizu, Japan and visiting Professor at my University saw an opportunity for me to be engaged in Interdisciplinary research which included three branches; Computer Science, Learning Science and Physics. I defended my Thesis entitled, “A Multimedia Learning System for selected topics of Physics” in December, 2011 from which I published my first paper by the same name with the prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). The paper is now available on IEEE Xplore for $31US dollars per download. I made my first International travel to Istanbul, Turkey for the paper presentation fully sponsored by my University and through this met and rubbed minds with top researchers like Prof. Oussama Khatib, well-renown Stanford University Robotics Professor, Prof. Okyay Kaynak, UNESCO Chair on Mechatronics, Bogazici University amongst many others. Upon completion of my Master’s program, I was retained by my University as a Teaching/ Research Assistant where I basically assisted on the courses Telecommunications Engineering and Automata Theory at the MSc. level while delving deeper into research work. In August 2012, I joined the newly formed Active and Smart Media Research Group as a coordinator overseeing 5 MSc. students with my former supervisor Prof. Mohamed Hamada serving as Group Lead. We worked on the design and development of Multimedia Learning Systems for different platforms and topics, e-learning supporting tools for active and smart learning, Integration of Artificial Intelligence Techniques to the systems to create Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Integration of Learning Style Index into the systems to measure the learning preferences, Integration of motivational real-life examples into the systems and the experimental evaluations for the systems. In just 7 months since I took up the position of coordinator of the group, we were able to see the following successes; 90% implementation of Multimedia content on Android platform for Automata Theory, Compiler, Physics, Information and Communication Theory, and Data Structures as well as an IEEE major conference paper, two book chapters already published by NOVA Science publications and made available on Amazon.com, and a conference paper published by INTED 2013.
The Lesson
The truth is a whole lot has happened in less than 3 years and I will share more of that as time progresses but let me send a few points home so that you get a holistic view of what I am trying to convey in this post. Many people find themselves stuck on a job or a career because they are too scared to begin again. Either they think they are too old to go back to school, learn a new skill, or simply get a new job. In my opinion the fear of beginning again has held more people in bondage and limited their capability to achieve more than the worst financial crisis has kept people in poverty. I see this every day of my life and it saddens me because the question I often ask myself is, “How long do they think they are going to be here on this planet earth?” Why tie yourself down to a job just because you want to pay the bills, feed and clothe yourself when there is much more than you can be doing that will automatically take care of these basic needs? When I made the decision to quit the MSc. program in Physics it was a tough call which dealt me some serious blows. My supervisor who had specifically chosen me out of 7 others in my class to work with was utterly disappointed. My parents couldn’t imagine I was about to quit school to go learn computer programming after all the money they had spent. In fact an uncle of mine who happened to be an authority figure in my life told me that there was no money in Computer Science and went as far as equating it to what computer maintenance professionals do and suggested that Electrical Engineering would be a better option. Within me too were internal wrangling’s which took away my sleep and left me wallowing in a gulf of confusion. But once the decision was finally made I felt an overwhelming peace on the inside knowing that there was light at the end of the tunnel and it wasn’t an oncoming train! It appeared this somewhat “dumb” act began to attract all the resources necessary to take me to where I wanted to go and today after 3 years and 7 months, I am a PhD candidate due to graduate before the end of the year 2017. Now listen to this very carefully,
- A baby shark kept in a small aquarium would only grow to a few inches in length. But the same shark placed in the ocean would grow to become a giant killer. That’s the same debilitating effect fear would have on you. Super achievers have fears too but the difference is that they refuse to be overcome by them.
- Make a plan for your life before life makes its plans for you. I can guarantee you with all certainty that life’s plans for you are not what you desire. They say he who fails to plan by default plans to fail. You can’t coast around with no definitive goals in life and expect to win big.
- Expect to fail along your way to succeeding. The difference between successful people and the unsuccessful is that successful people fail many more times than the unsuccessful yet refuse to be seen as failures. Someone once said that, “Success is on the far side of failure.” If you are afraid of failing then you probably would never achieve anything substantial. See failing as an opportunity to learn something new and then start all over again with this new knowledge in mind.
- Be cautious when you listen to the “experts”. The “experts” sometimes are the people in your life, who believe they know you better than anyone else, want the best for you and also know which course of action you ought to take. They might be sincere in their suggestions to you but they might also be sincerely wrong. So listen to them with caution and be very selective with what you adopt from them as best practice.
- Finally, don’t be afraid to begin again. It might just be the best thing that ever happened to you. It makes no sense to have raced up the ladder of life at full speed only to realize that it had been leaning against the wrong wall. You are not in a competition with anybody. You have your own race and you are on your own lane. Stop trying to keep up with the Joneses. Stay on your lane and win.
First published at my blog www.openshares.blogspot.com
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